


forever for a while

by ilgaksu



Series: ceasefire [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Backstory Reference), Car Accidents, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Korean Keith (Voltron), M/M, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Series Spoilers, Texan Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8164636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: “I’m stuck on some weird-ass Naboo’s lovechild planet, after going warp drive through a wormhole, with my ex,” Lance says, a little horrified, a little wondering. The light makes his lips look cold. He’s mixing up his references.“Are we still exes?” Keith asks.





	

“I can’t believe this happening,” Lance is saying, for the sixth time today. Keith’s too tired to tell him to shut up, the setting sun warm on his face where he lies splayed across Blue’s body. Red is tilted on her side in the undergrowth a few miles west. Leaving her was like leaving a limb; like when he once caught Shiro gritting his teeth, white-knuckling it. He’d looked up, and smiled weakly.

 _Don’t worry about it, Keith,_ he’d said. _It’s just normal. It’s just phantom pains._

“I cannot believe this,” Lance says, “This is like a goddamn space opera. This is some real, honest to God _Star Trek_ flavour level of _batshit_.”

Okay, Keith’s tired, but he’s prepared to work through that to shove Lance off his own Lion in a second. Lance is sprawled next to him on his back, his armour pulled aside and discarded on his pilot chair. His eyes are half-lidded and his breathing is shallow but even. His right wrist is broken. He’d said _good job I’m a leftie, bitches_ , through bitten-white lips as Keith set it as quickly as he could, and hauled himself up here one-handed just to see the lilac sun, which is the most Lance thing Keith has ever seen. It sets every three hours and rises again. They’ve watched more sunsets in the last day than they ever did when they were dating at the Garrison. The light makes Lance something untouchable, something out-of-reach, which is a familiar look on him for Keith these days.

“Welcome to our lives, Lance,” he says, not without some trace of bitterness. Lance laughs, and it’s not a nice laugh.

“I’m stuck on some weird-ass Naboo’s lovechild planet, after going warp drive through a wormhole, with my ex,” Lance says, a little horrified, a little wondering. The light makes his lips look cold. He’s mixing up his references.

“Are we still exes?” Keith asks.

“I bet you the Federation wouldn’t let this shit slide, ‘cause this is like, third season level of - wait, what?”

Lance turns to stare at him, eyes wide. Keith swallows. His mouth is very dry, his head too loud with memories of Lance lying next to him like that. They seem to be pushing out all the space for his thoughts and his breath.

“Are we? Still exes?” he repeats.

They haven’t talked about it since before the Balmeran rescue mission. There’s been too much going on. There’s been too much trying not to die. They’re not dead now, Keith thinks absurdly. It’s a good as time as any.

“I mean, yes,” Lance says, and it drops in Keith’s chest like a stone.

“Oh,” he says, and rolls away onto his other side.

“Hey, no, don’t do that,” Lance says, reaching out with his good hand and tugging Keith back. “What do you mean, ‘oh’? Did you not want to be? Don’t go holding out on me, Keith. I’m a stronger man than you are, I can keep going all night like this.”

“That’s a lie and we both know it,” Keith snorts, but he rolls back to face Lance again, who is looking at him very intently. “I was just - it’s probably a bad idea.”

“Keith, we’re talking about us.” Lance smirks. “When have we ever not gone with the bad idea?”

“Maybe we could break the habit.”

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it.”

“I did break it, Lance.”

They both wince.

“Okay, fair.”

There’s a short silence. Keith fights the urge to fuss with the Velcro fastening of his gloves, mercifully still intact.

“Hey, do you remember that time we snuck out?” Lance says. Keith sighs.

“We did that a lot, Lance.”

“Are you gonna let me finish, or what?”

“Sure, sure, whatever,” Keith shrugs. “It’s not like I can talk to anyone else right now.”

The minute he says it, he goes cold with it again: the knowledge they are alone with the weight and the silence of the whole universe, their comms fried, each other and nothing else to stave off -

“Okay, so rude, but also this is, three - maybe three? - months in? I think? I don’t know. Time is weird.”

Lance looks at Keith’s face and sighs as well, moving from his side onto his back again.

“Look, I’m worried too, Keith, but staring at the sun and gnashing our teeth is going to do nothing. We might as well talk about this.”

“Is _this_ going anywhere, Lance,” Keith says. The sniping is familiar. It soothes a quiet panicked ache.

“Maybe it _would_ if you’d let me finish,” Lance says, falling back into it as well, grinning openly. Lance’s smiles hit Keith like a forming bruise each time these days.

“Alright. I’m just saying, you do this a lot.”

“Oh, fuck you -”

“Yeah, you’ve already gone there.”

“And it’s the biggest regret of my life -”

“Is it?” Keith asks, and the broken nerve of it flares up in his voice, the fraying of the unspoken fear.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Keith says, and looks Lance dead in the eyes, giving no quarter. He keeps his voice steady and balls his hands into fists, waiting for a blow that never comes. He knows he was Lance’s first, would have been able to tell from the shiver in his eyes and his body even without Lance having said as much one of the earliest nights at the Garrison, hands over his face and the tips of his ears going scarlatine. It’s about that. It’s not just about that.

“Regret is for other people,” Lance tells him, shrugging.

“That’s....not what I asked.”

“No, it’s like -” Lance sighs again, and scrubs his hair through his hair, turning to stare up at the dying sun. “I don’t do takebacks, alright? You’re not - something I feel bad over anymore.”  

“I feel bad over you,” Keith says, and means every word.

Next to him, Lance goes very still, then turns to look at Keith. He reaches out as though to trace a line along Keith’s jaw, and Keith’s skin itches, Keith’s lungs seize, but Lance draws a line in the thin air and stops. _Here and no closer._

“Like that,” he says, very softly.

“Huh?”

“What I was trying to say. The first time I - you were looking at me just like that.” He smiles, self-deprecatingly.

The moment stretches, slow and bittersweet. It aches in Keith’s mouth. All of it comes crashing down; the fear in the back of his throat, the hangover of that Garrison year, the lilac sun setting in Lance’s eyes.

They’re more alone than they’ve been in a long time.  

“I think I want you to kiss me,” Keith whispers. He sees it register in Lance’s face. He swallows, hard.

“You think?” Lance whispers back. “You gotta commit, Keith. Put up or shut up. Go big or go home -”

“I know,” Keith snaps, and then says it again. “I know.”

Lance reaches out and this time his hand cups Keith’s jaw. He thumbs slowly over his lower lip. It goes through Keith like a stab wound only good.

“You’re shaking,” Keith murmurs. When Lance looks like he might pull his hand away, he grabs Lance’s wrist to hold him in place.

“Adrenaline crash,” Lance replies, looking away. “Happens all the time.”

“Don’t,” Keith says, “You said you'd stop doing that, I feel so fucking bad over you, you have no idea,” and Lance surges forward with a stricken sound and kisses him so hard their teeth clack. Lance laughs into his mouth, and it shouldn’t make Keith go hot but it does.

“Missed this,” Lance says, half a confession Keith chases down, a whine caught in his throat; both his hands in Lance’s hair, both his hands on Lance’s face, skimming over the dried blood and the dirt. There’s part of this that sings in Keith. It’s been months since he heard Lance moan like that, longer since he pushed him down and heard Lance say _please, I don’t care, just don’t keep me waiting._

And there's part of this that is an afterthought, because half of Keith's life is, because Keith himself is; an afterthought cut out alive from a smashed car on the Interstate, a second Caesarean for a boy was reborn too quiet in the ambulance and too loud on the road; a boy reborn with restless gasoline eyes. Keith only ever thinks it out after the deed's done, after his hand is aching, after his knuckles are bleeding, after he's only gone and broken something again.

He pulls away for breath and feels Lance leans back, probably to watch his face, that used to be a thing. His lips feel sore. He doesn't open his eyes, until Lance says, "Look at me," and he does. Lance smiles crookedly, backlit by a sunset so close to dying they might as well give up the game and admit it, and he says, "Yeah. Just like that."

He reaches forward again with his left, propped up on his right forearm; the weight is off the wrist, but he still winces as he shifts.

"How's your hand?" Keith asks, and Lance raises his eyebrows in a familiar, silent  _read the mood_ before shrugging and glancing down at it, lips thinning. 

"Hurts like a bitch. Had worse."

Keith scoffs. Lance looks offended.

"I can't believe you're trying to act brave when I've seen you sobbing over a film about a boat," Keith tells him. Lance - quick to cry, quick to bleed - predictably flares.

"Titanic is a classic and totally happened and they _deserved better,_ " Lance insists.

"Sure."

"I can't believe you're trying to be brave to make me feel better," Lance replies.

"I think I liked it _better_ when you were kissing me," Keith says. Lance waggles his eyebrows.

"Of course you did. What’s new?"

"Does it hurt," Keith asks again, this time through gritted teeth. Lance stops grinning and shrugs, leaning his head back to look at the sky. The sun is gone. In the darkness, they could be the only people on this planet. In the darkness, they could be the last people alive.  

"It's not us I'm worried about.”

Keith’s heart aches with it. He doesn’t remember most of it, but he knows that in the collision that killed his parents, he snapped his collarbone, several ribs, was lucky for it all to miss his lungs. He’s seen the medical report, the clinical notes of _prominent contusions and abrasions from seat belt, appears to be in a state of severe shock upon admittance, some kind of follow up advised_ . Keith has broken fingers on both hands in bad fights, cut his teeth on gritting them tight. _Next of kin: not applicable. To be referred to the care of the state._ Keith had one family, and then he lost one. History repeats itself. Life’s a bitch.

"Do you think they might be," Keith starts, and then can't finish.

He went to Shiro’s funeral once, stood in the honour guard with his hands still and his spine straight and perfect, and Shiro’s aunt will never know the difference.

"No," Lance says, startling Keith out of his thoughts. He sounds very sure. "They're alive. They will be because they have to be, you know?”

He’s leant back now, head pillowed on one outflung arm, his broken wrist cradled against his chest. It’s getting cold with the new reach of dark. Lance’s eyes are glistening.

“They will be because they know if they're not, you'll dig them up and drag them into formation by yourself. I mean, you're kind of intense, babe. I wouldn't want to fuck with you."

"You fuck me with me every day of your life," Keith says, because he can’t think of anything else.

"Yeah," Lance sighs. "It's cool, Keith. You can't help what you're into." 

When Keith looks at him, Lance is smiling though, his eyes on the stars. He senses Keith's gaze, glances over, and winks.

"We got this, kitkat," he says.

"What the fuck did you just call me?" Keith hisses, because he has priorities, like his goddamn reputation. Lance laughs, his mouth wide and open.

"Sorry, I don't take requests."

"What if you said boyfriend," Keith says quickly, not thinking until the deed is done. "What if I said that?"

Lance stares at him, his jaw dropping.

"You pick your moments, huh," he says after a few seconds.

"Don't make me say it again."

"What? Boyfriends? You're the one who's on about doing shit again, my guy."

"Just you," Keith says, and realises what he's said exactly two seconds later when Lance's eyes widen and he starts cackling.

"Nice," Lance manages in between gasps for air, "Wow. Are you getting worse at this? I think you're getting worse at this. Don't get old, Keith. You've peaked, you literal boy wonder."

"Oh my god," Keith decides. "I take it back."

He doesn't say: _we may not get to grow old anyway._ He doesn't say: _you're as bad_ . He doesn't say: _I think we deserve each other. Stay. Let's see how old we can get._

"I can't wait to tell Shiro this," Lance says. "Oh my god, no, Hunk will _freak_. No, no, I'm gonna wait and tell them once we're all back together, then I can watch them _all at once."_

He makes it look so easy. One day, that faith of his - in them, in Earth, in the great hypothetical goodness of the universe - is gonna get him killed. Keith doesn't realise he's said that out loud until Lance looks at him, sudden and piercing, and says, "Don't you get tired?"

"Like, right now?"

"I mean, yes, but also don't you get tired of that? All the alarm bells in your head?"

For a boy that was never supposed to know anything at all, Lance knows him well. 

"Yeah," Keith replies. "It gets... loud."

Lance nods.

"Go to sleep then," he says. "I'll keep scanning with Blue. We'll take shifts."

Keith goes to protest, imagines Shiro saying _think about it_ , thinks about it. He nods. Sometimes it’s just phantom pains. If all that’s left of Shiro’s legacy is some dropout kid with a bad attitude and a serious sense of displacement, then that’s that. Life’s a bitch. Keith always keeps walking.

"Yeah!" Lance crows, punching the air and whistling. "Look at me, being a great boyfriend! Top of the class for me!"

"You've got a way to go," Keith tells him dryly, helping Lance to his feet. "Cargo pilot."

"Oh, you think you can beat me, huh?" Lance says, his teeth flashing as he bares them.

"I’ve done it before."

"Alright, drop out." Lance is smiling. It cuts across the night and right into Keith's chest. "It's _on_ ,” and he keeps holding Keith’s hand.

 


End file.
